Dear Echo,
Welcome to the 5th attempt. Writing this and the previous 4 were the most painful things I've ever had to do. But I enjoyed it. I didn't forget. I didn't procrastinate. I struggled. I still am. Pen Pals.
I wonder if you caught the message I put in the brain part of my last letter's rambles. This letter won't be as controlled. I've been
A lot's happened since the last update. I joined a community service org, research started up, and we created a new start-up group that actually feels promising. Okay, fine, I'll expand on them a little ;). The community service organization I joined is Alpha Phi Omega. It's founded on some of the principles of scouting! I figured it would be a perfect way to start getting myself more involved on campus. I have a couple of friends in it as well—Ben is one of them! Research started up. It's not too bad. They're pretty flexible with when you can come and go. That being said… it's LONG. The procedure takes a couple of hours, and you can't really do work or study in between. I might try to switch research mentors because the topic the guy I'm working with is researching isn't the most interesting to me. I want to see if eventually I can branch off and work on my own semi-adjacent thing. Launchpad, the startup incubator program I'm in, started up again. We had a hackathon last weekend, and it honestly went well. We didn't win, but it was really informative. We even managed to restructure our group a little (new member!!, almost kicked out the slacker I used to rant about ;-;). Our idea has some promise to it as well! I'll let you know how it goes. I bought the pants I told you about—the heaven eclipse denim from the potential scam company. I've been feeling pretty insecure about my appearance lately because of what happened. Even though it was a big purchase and a somewhat risky buy (istg if I fucked up the sizing), I needed to take charge of my physical aesthetic. I'm no longer going to be hoodie-and-sweatpants-shay.
I still haven't been able to rationalize Jack's situation in my head. Telling you about this has honestly been the only thing that's come close to helping. I don't want to get too depressing, so I'll end this part early. I'll give you updates.
I'm working towards bettering myself, and I'm seeing progress, but I'd be lying if I said I was happy. I don't think I've ever exploded as much as I have these past few weeks. I stained 3 of the previous 4 attempts with my tears. I'm going to try to get the next letter out via mail. I needed breathing room to fuck up. Tears can't stain pixels, right? I tried my best to make up for it this time. I hope you like the vibe of this page—spent an ungodly amount of time building it 😭 (nearly 2 thousand lines of code... I'm good at this, I swear!!)
Even though they're not as relevant now, here are some of the thoughts I had in the previous attempts: a few weeks ago now, it rained at night. I woke up to the musty post-rain daylight—a white and dull sky. I missed the rain. I broke down into tears during one of my lectures that day. In a way, it was pretty satisfying. I managed to catch a few drops one way or another.
Luckily…
A few days later, I really did manage to catch the rain. It was stupid of me, I know, but I left my dorm without a jacket. I got wet. I walked around. I missed you.
Once my exams are over, I'm gonna start reading again. I updated my Goodreads list. I'm going to finish East of Eden first, then maybe pick up some of Dostoevsky's work. I read a line from The Brothers Karamazov that made me really want to check it out. (I forgot the line 😅)
There's so much I want to say that I know I shouldn't. I'm hurt, but I can't get rid of these feelings. I don't want to move on from you. 4 more minutes.
4 more minutes.
(Hopefully, you can tell which poet inspired the 2nd one.)
Akshay
My sky wears her shade and then the clouds irisate
overwhelming night sky covered my arms with sunken shadows crawling limerence only touched the phantom of your warmth And the sky split open with the rain tearing Up to my glowing eyes I miss the taste of chocolate
Graph that. plus two sighs next. Exhale,
